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Month: November 2018

Melbourne, Australia: On Friday 9 November a Somali-background Muslim man, Hassan Shire Ali, went to Bourke Street in the centre of Melbourne, intent on causing carnage for the sake of Allah. Just a stone’s throw from the Victorian State parliament Ali set fire to a van filled with propane cylinders in the hope of triggering a massive explosion. When this failed to materialise he went on a stabbing spree, wounding two people and killing one. The person who died was a ‘Melbourne icon’, Sisto Malsapina, co-owner of Pellegrini’s Coffee Bar.

In terms of casualties this was a relatively ‘small’ attack (although, of course, devastating for all involved). Yet, it once again demonstrated how far we still have to go in terms of honestly acknowledging that we have a problem with Islam. In fact, the Australian establishment seems to have gone into full ‘protection mode’ in order to ensure that no uncomfortable questions were asked about the role of Islamic teaching in inspiring the attack.

The way in which this was done was so predictable that it was almost comical. A kind of paint-by-numbers response to terror that seemed to say: ‘Nothing to see here, move right along’. If it was not for the fact that the lives of people are being put at risk by this, one could almost admire everyone involved for sticking so closely to the script.

Some examples:
• As soon as it became clear that the attacker was a Muslim shouting ‘Allahu-Akbar’ as he did the deed a lightning-fast diagnosis of mental illness was dangled before the public, with his family stating that he is ‘delusional’. Of course, this testimony (by those with a vested interest to cover for their faith) was immediately accepted at face value by the credulous Australian media. Some of whom even called the atrocity a ‘Cry for Help’!

• Almost as quickly a statement was produced by the mosque frequented by the attacker (Hume Islamic Centre) to deny that he was ever a regular attender. This statement has since been thoroughly disproved, but was still useful in the immediate aftermath of the attack as a means of duping the public into believing that no ‘respectable’ mosque could teach anything dangerous.

• After these two stock-standard bits of obfuscation the ‘grievance machine’ sprung into action. When Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison very tentatively suggested that a bit of soul-searching might be in order for the Muslim community, a storm of wailing and hand wringing was unleashed. The ‘Grand Mufti’ of Australia and other Muslim leaders rejected with scorn any notion that they could have done anything to prevent the attack and accused the Prime Minister of bigotry and discrimination.

• This was just the opening salvo however. Australian Muslim commentators rushed to find typewriters and microphones to bellow out their indignation. Not at the loss of life, mind you. No, apparently something far more serious had to be addressed. The real victim, it turns out, was the Muslim community. One example should suffice. Columnist Randa Abdel-Fatah was given reams of space in all of Australia’s major newspapers with an article entitled ‘I Feel Nothing But Rage, Alienation and Despair’. What was the rage about? That a family and city is grieving the loss of a much loved father and patron? Think again. Apparently, it is much worse that some people so much as dared to ask questions about whether, just possibly, the Qur’an might have had something to do with all of this. I see your atrocity and raise you the victim card!

• Then there was, lastly, the ultimate fallback position: Moral Equivalence. Muslim Australian member of parliament and Counter-Terrorism Expert (I’m not making this up), Dr Anne Aly, essentially said that the attack was no-big-deal since, wait for it, domestic violence exist in Australia: “Violence perpetrated by violent jihadists, or radical islam, as the prime minister wants to put it, pales in comparison to the number of women who are being killed every week in domestic and partner violence.” There you have it. It seems we have bigger fish to fry, so Islamic terror should only come on the agenda when domestic violence is under control. This from a women whose area of academic expertise, again I kid you not, is counter-terrorism. The mind boggles!

Again, how can it be that after all we’ve seen and been through these stock-standard responses to Islamic terror are still blindly accepted by the masses? If anything, these events just confirmed that we need to redouble our efforts to get people to seriously think about the essential nature of Islam.

One of the key differences between the Christian and Muslim views of Jesus Christ is a sharp disagreement about the crucifixion. While the Christian Gospels are unanimous that Jesus died after being crucified, the Qur’an denies the crucifixion in the strongest terms possible: “They (the Jews) boasted we killed Christ Jesus the Son of Mary but verily they killed him not, nor did they crucify him.” (Qur’an 4:157)

This verse has obviously been a massive bone of contention between the two faiths and has been endlessly debated. The purpose of this section is not to enter into this debate, but to show that this verse was almost certainly a later addition to the Qur’an. Thus, providing another piece of evidence for the self-evident truth that the Qur’an simply did not exist in the form that it does today at the end of Muhammad’s life. The claim that this verse is a later addition is strongly confirmed by the fact that it is entirely absent from the earlier stages of the developing Islamic tradition.

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was constructed in 691 CE by the Caliph Abd Al Malik (646-705 CE), quite specifically to act as a visual statement of the errors of Christianity from an Islamic perspective. There are verses on the Inner Ambulatory denying the Trinity, the idea that Christ is the Son of God and that call Christians misguided. The presence of this visual statement in the heart of Jerusalem, the place where Christianity emerged, must have been a strong reminder to believing Muslims to completely reject the Christian version of the events surrounding the life of Jesus. It was also a calculated snub directed at the Christian believers of Jerusalem. Now, what would these Christian believers regard as the most important event ever to have happened in Jerusalem? Given the attention paid to this in the Gospels, the answer should be obvious: The crucifixion. Yet, there is one verse that is conspicuous by its absence in the Dome of the Rock’s repudiation of Christianity: Qur’an 4:157 cannot be found on any of the original inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock.

The Qur’an is, furthermore, one of the most commented on books in history. Visit any Islamic library and you will see many commentaries on the sacred text so deeply revered by Muslims. Some of these commentaries will have something akin to canonical status in the sense that they are part of the official Islamic theological tradition (known as Taqlid). When we pick up these ‘official’ commentaries, we find them commenting in detail on all the verses of the Qur’an. Well, almost all of them. There is one verse that is conspicuous by its absence. You guessed it: Qur’an 4:157 is not discussed in any of the earliest commentaries!

Think for a moment why this would be the case? It cannot be because this verse has no theological importance. Instead one may consider it as one of the most theologically loaded verses in the Qur’an given its importance for the way in which the followers of Islam are supposed to view Christianity. In fact, many modern Muslims take their cue from this verse as teaching them to absolutely detest the cross. The only possible explanation as to why this verse is absent from the commentaries should be blindingly obvious. It could only have been excluded because the verse in question was not part of the Qur’an at the time when the commentaries were compiled. This conclusion obviously raises all sorts of question about Islamic history and the truth-claims that are supposedly solidly based on this history.

Over the past few years we have regularly seen Western media outlets ‘covering’ for Islam by attempting to show that so-called ‘radical groups’ are somehow ‘Un-Islamic’. One of the most common claims made in this regard was that the members of ISIS, Al-Shabab, Boko Haram etc. cannot be good Muslims as they regularly engage in the rape of women captured during their actions.

Astounding as it may seem, however, such actions receive direct divine sanction in the Qur’an and Islamic traditions.

The two most trusted sources of Islamic traditions (ahadith) Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukhari both relate an incident where some Muslim fighters were raping captive women (whom they intended to sell for ransom) while taking care to observe ‘coitus interruptus’ (the withdrawal of the penis before the moment of climax). They came to Muhammad to ask him whether this was lawful: His answer was staggering in its callousness and its implications for later Muslim conduct during war: “It does not matter if you do not do it(withdraw before climaxing), for every soul that is to be born up to the Day of Resurrection will be born.” (Sahih Muslim 3371, see also Sahih Bukhari 34:176:2229)

Muhammad’s reaction beggars belief. Instead of furiously commanding them to stop such vile conduct and taking the women into his protection, Muhammad (the ‘perfect example’, Qur’an 33:21) cheerfully instructs his followers to do to the women whatever they desired!

To make matters even worse, Muslim tradition states that the following verse of the Qur’an was revealed precisely to ease the qualms of Muslim warriors about having sex with enslaved captives: “Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess” (Qur’an 4:24) So according to the word of Allah if “your right hand possesses” a woman, sex with her is totally lawful even if she is married to someone else. This is something of a theme in the Qur’an with four verses in total assuring Muslims that sex with captives is lawful while there are no verses mandating the number of daily prayers (Muslims have to turn to the hadiths for this)!

Perhaps we’ve been looking for the ‘War on Women’ in all the wrong places?